£25m Soapworks will create 2,000 jobs in Salford Quays

AT least 2,000 jobs will be created under £25m plans to turn a former factory in Salford Quays into a complex with offices, retail and leisure space and homes. US private equity firm Carlyle Group has teamed up with Abstract Nikal – a joint venture by Nick Payne’s Manchester-based Nikal and Leeds-based Abstract Securities formed to develop the site.

AT least 2,000 jobs will be created under £25m plans to turn a former factory in Salford Quays into a complex with offices, retail and leisure space and homes.

US private equity firm Carlyle Group has teamed up with Abstract Nikal – a joint venture by Nick Payne’s Manchester-based Nikal and Leeds-based Abstract Securities formed to develop the site.

Mr Payne said: “This project provides us with the opportunity to regenerate a waterfront site along Ordsall Lane, making it a strategically important site for the wider area.

“We have designed a scheme that will cater for a broad range of tenant requirements, but will specifically target those occupiers who want to occupy an iconic building that offers high-quality space at an affordable price.”

The 8.4 acre site centres on the former Colgate Palmolive factory, now renamed the Soapworks, in Ivy Wharf, next to Exchange Quay.

If plans are approved, it will be turned into a development comprising 380,000 sq ft of offices, shops, a gym and restaurants on the ground floor.

Marketing for pre-lets has already begun and the project will be developed in three stages, with the first totalling 100,000 sq ft.

An outline application has also been submitted for the development of the wider Ivy Wharf site, including an extension to the Soapworks building to include a 200-bed hotel, retail units, homes and more offices.

That could bring up to 3,000 additional jobs.

Carlyle acquired the site in October, 2008 after raising 2.2bn euros for a European real estate pot, and bought a £110m office development in Manchester at Piccadilly Place last year.

Carlyle Group director Mark Harris said: “Our plans for the Ivy Wharf development are a further reflection of our commitment to investing in the Manchester region.”

Abstract Nikal has also acquired the freeholds of several adjacent sites, which it will manage as a long-term investment for its own benefit.